Description
A dreidel or dreidel (/ˈdreɪdəl/ DRAY-dəl; Yiddish: דרײדל, romanized: dreydl, plural: dreydlekh;[a] Hebrew: סביבון, romanized: sevivon) is a four-sided spinning top, played during the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah.
Each side of the dreidel bears a letter of the Hebrew alphabet: נ (nun), ג (gimel), ה (hei), ש (shin). These letters are translated in Yiddish to a mnemonic for the rules of a gambling game played with a dreidel: Nun stands for the Yiddish word nisht (“nothing”), Gimel for gants (“all”), Hei for halb (“half”), and Shin for shtel ayn (“put in”). However, they represent the Hebrew phrase nes gadol hayah sham (“a great miracle happened there”), referring to the miracle of the cruse of oil. For this reason, most dreidels in Israel replace the letter Shin with a letter פ (pe), to represent the phrase nes gadol hayah poh (“a great miracle happened here”); however, many Haredi communities insist that the letter Shin should be used in the Holy Land as well, because the reference to “there” means in the Holy Temple and not in the Land.
While not mandated (a mitzvah) for Hanukkah (the only traditional mitzvot are lighting candles and saying the full Hallel), spinning the dreidel is a traditional game played during the holiday
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